


and bow and accept the end

by seeyaloki



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Character Study, M/M, Sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-21
Updated: 2019-12-21
Packaged: 2021-02-26 05:54:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21878473
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seeyaloki/pseuds/seeyaloki
Summary: From beginning to endor,Maedhros is always cold, he wonders if Fingon is too
Relationships: Fingon | Findekáno/Maedhros | Maitimo
Comments: 3
Kudos: 28





	and bow and accept the end

**Author's Note:**

> Title from 'Reluctance' by Robert Frost!

He looks upon his father and sees a man he doesn't know. A wrath in his eyes that he has never seen before, words of anger and vengeance thunder across the hall and his father looks almost ripped apart by hatred. Like a sword in his forges, struck with too much vigor and not enough care, underestimating the impact of the weight of a hammer upon hot and fragile iron. That is why Maedhros, first, speaks loudly of binding himself to the Oath. To help balance the weight and hope the sword will not break. When he is done swearing his devotion and his father looks proud and just a little less torn at the edges, Maedhros manages to fool himself into thinking he just stopped something from shattering.

He can't remember what anymore.

I

There's blood in the water at Alqualondë. His wrist hurts from swinging his sword, and his throat is sore from yelling commands. Elves lay dead at his feet, scattered like the broken arrows and dropped swords and daggers surrounding them. He can't tell which of the slain are his own soldiers, and Maedhros knows in his heart that their deeds will not go unpunished. But his father steps over bodies like it's no matter and gives the order to ready the remaining ships and his coldness will chase them all the way across the sea. Maedhros can feel the ghost of it against the back of his neck already.

Fingon is looking at the water as well, still as a statue, until he feels Maedhros' gaze and meets his eyes. There is no victory to be celebrated here, nothing to be proud of, nothing really won, and Fingon knows it all too well. He thinks _you mustn't have followed me here, Fingon. Anywhere, but not here_. But Fingon only looks back for a moment before kneeling and wiping his stained blade on the grass at his feet. Neither of them says a word, but Maedhros watches the grass turn from dark green to stained red until Fingon stands up again and gazes at the water once more before turning away and walking back to his own people. Sword wiped clean of sins that were never his to begin with. Maedhros thinks of following, of asking him to stay and sail with them, but Fingon's back is an almost unfamiliar rigid line and he remembers that they will never again be the same people that they were before this. So they go in opposite directions, and Maedhros in turn steps over the bodies and seathes his own dirty blade.

When he looks down, there is blood on his hands as well.

I

In Losgar he shouts, at his father and his brothers who stand with torches on an unknown shore, ready to damn those that came to their aid even when it was undeserved. But his father only smiles at him with pity and says:

"These ships had only one purpose, my son, and it is fulfilled."

And then the haven is cast in an orange-red hue and the fire spreads so wildly and angrily and Maedhros thinks of betrayal, something his father so readily accused his kin of but now curses them with himself. But he cannot go back. And even when they find Amrod, perished in the flames and smoke, his father does not weep and does not regret and Maedhros thinks of what they have turned themselves into. And he wonders how one can be so cold, when an entire fleet of ships is in flames around them.

Fëanor will leave it all to burn, everything but his Oath, and in their desperation and their selfish pride, his sons gave themselves no choice but to let him.

So Maedhros casts one last look across the sea and thinks of the reflection of bloodstained water in Fingon's eyes and wishes he'd said things that he hadn't. But all there is left for him to do, is whisper a farewell to his youngest brother's broken body in the burning swanship before him. And then he turns to follow his father, and he pretends not to see the footprints they leave in the cursed grey ashes on the ground behind them.

I

All he really remembers upon the eagle's back, is pain and icy winds on his naked shoulders, his father's empty eyes glazed over, a song waking him from an unpeaceful slumber and the cold blade of a sword against the skin of his wrist. Later, he will recall the long days and even longer nights that he spent in seemingly unending pain. Later he will recall wrath so fearsome in the burning eyes of his enemy. He will think of the hatred he felt towards his kin for not coming back for him, and he will wonder how they will recover the jewels if they could not even muster the courage to search for their own brother. He will recall his own voice, unfamiliar, begging for an ending and the regretful willingness in his cousin's eyes to deliver it to him, if only to stop his pain. Later, he will remember. But now, Thangorodrim fades again in the misty, dark distance, and Fingon whispers a promise of warm blankets and recovery in his ears, and no other memories come to his mind.

But he does not care. He _wants_ to forget.

I

Exactly one month after his rescue, Fingon and his father show their faces in the Fëanorian camp and Maedhros decides that he will give the title of High King to his uncle and hopes that he can so begin to repay a debt of which he doesn't even really know the price. His uncle thanks him and wishes him a speedy recovery before he leaves, but Fingon stays and just sits down beside him, and in the dull light, he looks older than he did even with his bow drawn tight, arrow aimed at Maedhros' chest.

"Will you come to regret this decision?"

Maedhros sighs and lays a hand on Fingon's stiff shoulder. "Perhaps someday, but not now. Now, I only hope that when you leave this camp tonight, you will do so holding as much love for me as you once had before I swore my Oath."

Fingon's eyes close slowly, like he is trying to blink away an oncoming headache, and he lays a hand on his back in turn.

"My love for you has never faltered, Maedhros. If it had, you would not be here."

He laughs coldly and gazes upon his maimed wrist, but he can't bring himself to anger. Fingon speaks the truth, though it hurts, had he not come for him, he would have died upon the mountains of Morgoth.

"Even when you were on the ice?"

Fingon lets go of his shoulder and stands to throw another block of wood into the crackling fire. And Maedhros thinks of warmth and how he longs to feel it again.

"Even on the ice."

And that's that then, Maedhros thinks, and he wonders if Fingon can still feel the freezing winds on his skin.

I

(Later, Fingon sighs as he arches over him and slips Maedhros' leg higher around his hips. His dark hair shields them from the world and Maedhros wishes he could stay there forever and chase this high instead of forsaken jewels. But he can hear the sounds of his people in the camp outside, and Fingon presses his forehead against his, says:

"Don't you ever go where I can't follow you. I will never forgive you if you do."

And Maedhros wants to answer _you should never forgive me, for any of the things that I do_. But Fingon whispers his name as he pushes forward, and Maedhros only pulls him closer.)

I

When Fingolfin lays dead on the ground, Maedhros is not there to witness it. But he bends his knee in the halls of Hithlum to his new King and later, as Fingon stares out his window with a void darkness in his eyes and a crown too heavy on his head, he says:

"I cannot do this."

And Maedhros answers: "You must."

They both know it's true. There is nothing more to be said after that.

I

Finrod dies, and Maedhros knows whose fault it really is. Turgon calls for punishment in his letters, but Fingon does not give it and not even his brothers understand why that is.

"You love me too loudly."

Fingon only scoffs. "They are your brothers, I will not take them from you. If you wish for punishment, give it yourself."

He looks so old and so tired, and his kingship is too heavy for his shoulders and they both know it. He's always been too kind, and Maedhros is not deserving of it, but Fingon is also scared of losing things he loves and so he does what he thinks is necessary to keep Maedhros coming back to him, even forgiving him and his kin for things that are much too evil to come back from.

"What they have done, Fingon, I might one day do as well."

Fingon scoffs again. "You are not like them."

"I am! Do you not see it? We are all of us forsaken, Fingon, the Sons of Fëanor, the cold is in our blood and it will never leave us, and we will never do anything to stop it from spreading. I am no different. And you should stop telling yourself that I am."

Fingon's knuckles are white from his tight grip around the cup in his hand. "I love you."

"And it might kill you."

The cup gets thrown across the room, and as it clatters and drops of wine spill on the tapestries, Maedhros feels like he has drawn a line between them that was never there before. Not even in Alqualondë, not even in the ice that was once between them.

"You don't know that."

Fingon looks like his father when he's angry. Maedhros doesn't dare tell him how afraid that makes him.

"We're cursed, Fingon. I am cursed. We will chase this Oath until it leads us to our graves, and we will take with us even those that we love. I have felt this since we stole the ships. Our deeds have damned us all to the Halls and back."

When Fingon takes a step closer this time, Maedhros takes one back and it feels like the start of condemnation.

"I told you not to go where I can't follow."

Maedhros takes another step back, further to the window, out of which he can see the nightsky and feel the wind of Himring, and he thinks _you go back to where it's warm, you go back and stay and never find me in the dark_.

"You were never meant to go where I'm headed, Fingon."

"You can't stop me from trying."

And determined, he doesn't take another step forward but turns around and heads for the door. There are battles that need strategies and they both know it. Morgoth doesn't sleep, and so their Union doesn't either, but it still feels like they are in the midst of a losing battle of their own as the distance between them grows.

"Love will bleed you dry, Fingon." He says. Because he must. Because he's known this since he spoke the words of the Oath to his father and his kin and watched it break them. All his brothers, a little more beyond fixing every day.

Fingon stops in his path and his shoulders, usually so proud and high, sag with a sigh that Maedhros has to strain to hear. He looks aside and the sharp profile of his face strikes a pale shade in the light of the moon, but he does not turn around to face him.

"It already has."

And then he walks away, and Maedhros lets him.

I

He never gets to see him again after that. When word finally comes, that Fingon's body is broken and beaten somewhere, stomped into the ground, Maedhros hates himself for the irony. That it was Fingon who went and him who couldn't follow.

He thinks of all the things he's done, unforgivable things, and he thinks of punishment. And he lies awake at the thought at night, that this must be it.

I

At the end of all things, there is blood on his hands again, blood that has been there for an age, that doesn't wash off, though he has long given up on trying to clean them.

His entire body aches and the Silmaril burns him and he knows, somewhere in his heart, that he deserves this. He thinks of blood in the water, and of burning ships and of steel against his wrist and dark hair tangled with his own on a bed. He's been so tired for such a long time and he longs for things he can hardly remember but wants to find again.

He does not want to be cold anymore.

He still thinks of Fingon, at the end of all things. And the heat surrounds him as he falls and falls and falls, and follows him back home.

I


End file.
